Rifle Platoon (Plastic)(BR733)includes four plastic infantry sprues, six medium bases, two small bases, two HQ small bases, one plastic base insert sprue and four Unit cards.

The rifle companies are the heart and soul of a rifle battalion. They are the ones who must clamber out of their fox holes, fix bayonets, and assault the enemy defences. They are the ones who must endure artillery bombardments, then be ready to repulse enemy attacks. Their long exposure to the rigours of desert warfare has toughened them, and taught them how to fight and win. Their tactics aren't subtle, they prefer to attack behind a heavy artillery barrage supported by infantry tanks.

Armoured FistThe British Army has the Italian-German armies in Africa caught in a vice, and are steadily screwing the jaws shut. The Eighth Army is advancing from El Alamein in the east, while the First Army fights its way through Tunisia from the west. Their armoured divisions combine the dash of fast, light tanks like the Honey and Crusader, with the power of the heavy Grant and Sherman. Their infantry divisions have some of the toughest riflemen in the world, backed up by thickly-armoured Churchill and Valentine tanks and massed artillery. Together, they make up a force that can defeat anything the enemy brings against them, a force that will destroy the Axis forces in Africa.

Gunfire crashed around Captain Harker as the Grant tanks of 22 Armoured Brigade, carefully concealed higher up the ridge line, traded shots with the veteran crews of the German tanks—new Mark IV panzers with even more powerful guns. Drifting columns of black smoke showed where combatants had already been reduced to battlefield debris. Neither side had an advantage yet, but the German forces were determined to hunt out the ends of the Allied line so they could once again outflank the British and evict them from their holes. The leadingpanzers were drawing close to the hidden gun positions of Harker's anti-tank company.

‘Steady, lads,’ Harker called. ‘Let them get just a bit closer.’ Gun crews hunkered down behind their 6-pounder anti-tank guns. Dug in, low along the forward slopes of the ridge line, anti-tank guns were devilishly hard for tank crews to spot, peering intently out through tiny vision slits. The angled gun shields were enough to give scant protection from machine-gun fire, but any direct hit from the panzers’ main guns would obliterate the gun and the men it sheltered.

The gun layers kept one hand on the elevating handwheels, gently traversing the guns with their shoulders to track their chosen target as it drew closer. Loaders crouched, ready to lever open the breech, ejecting the previous spent casing, and slam the next round home.

At last Harker shouted, ‘Fire!’ Crashing booms rang out as the small guns fired. A panzer shuddered to a sudden halt, its gun drooping. Machine-gun fire quickly began to saturate the area as the panzers returned fire, targeting the clouds of dust thrown up in front of the gun positions.

One by one more German tanks stopped, belching fire and smoke as dazed and wounded crew scrambled away from the wrecks. The panzers began to withdraw, still firing, until shimmering heat waves concealed them. The crackling of fires and ammunition cooking off drifted across the suddenly still battlefield. For now, at least, the German attack had failed.

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